EPP fed up with Fidesz’s anti-EU rhetoric, says István Ujhelyi (MSZP)

Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) MEP István Ujhelyi accuses MTI, Hungary’s state-run newswire, of not publishing a press release regarding a press conference he held in Strasbourg.

The lies of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have finally caught up to him, Ujhelyi said at the press conference. According to Ujhelyi, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker attended a parliamentary group meeting of the the European People’s Party (EPP) on Tuesday.

At the meeting, Juncker had called on MEPs from Hungarian ruling party Fidesz to account for the publicly funded anti-EU rhetoric displayed by the Hungarian government in recent months.

“Several influential MEPs, including the Italians and Germans, indicated during the EPP debate that they have had it with the anti-EU rhetoric that is spreading like a virus across Europe,” Ujhelyi said.

According to him, EPP parliamentary group leader Manfred Weber issued an uncustomary criticism of Hungary’s justice minister, László Trócsányi, for what is happening in Hungary.

Ujhelyi said the European Parliament this week voted on a resolution which would allow the EU’s legislative body to not only address any specific violations of EU law, but also any threats to democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights in Member States. The resolution was supported by the vast majority of EPP parliamentarians — except for those from Fidesz.

“It is no coincidence that the other members of the EPP, aside from Juncker, Tusk and Merkel, are also putting distance between themselves and the policies of Fidesz,” Ujhelyi said at the press conference. “Until now, Fidesz has claimed that there is media freedom in Hungary, that public funds are spent in accordance with the law, that there is an independent judiciary, that Hungary has a real democracy. But not any more. Orbán, who has been building his illiberal democracy, has been exposed.”